Beaconhills College

The Beaconhills Alumni Association’s inaugural Trivia Night held earlier this month was a big success.

The 130 College and alumni community members raised more than $2000 towards the new Monash Children’s Hospital, which will service many children from our region. A big thanks to Bethany Thearle, John Waterhouse, Belinda Malcolm, Nigel Boltwin and Kylie Whitwood.

An even bigger and better event is planned next year. You can join the Beaconhills Alumni Association through the College Shop.

Junior School students from Beaconhills College’s Pakenham Campus brought the classic tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears to life on stage last term.

Harriet V (Year 4) was a star performer in the lead role of Goldilocks. The show was the Roald Dahl musical adaptation of the famous fairytale. Year 4 students now take part in a major production at Beaconhills each year.

Harriet V was a convincing Goldilocks

Little Beacons Learning Centre has launched what is believed to be an Australian first – an overnight camp for pre-schoolers.

Four and five-year-old children from Little Beacons recently spent the night at Camp Jungai in Rubicon, Victoria.

The 35 excited children left with staff in the afternoon and were joined by their parents later that evening.

The Early Explorers program at the centre is the first step in Beaconhills College’s huge outdoor education and global program – Beacon Explorers. It begins with four year olds and builds to longer and more challenging experiences, including visiting and volunteering in destinations such as East Timor and Vietnam.

Head of Little Beacons, Vicki Reid, said the Jungai experience helped children build confidence about going on camp, as they were able to reconnect with their parents in the early evening.

Until now, Early Explorers at Little Beacons has involved weekly expeditions to explore some of the natural bush habitats on the College grounds at its Pakenham Campus.

Ms Reid said the Jungai program was based around Indigenous learning. Beaconhills teacher Lynette George, who leads the College’s Indigenous programs, attended along with Shawn Andrews from education provider Indigicate.

Activities included an orienteering session, boomerang painting and a nature trail walk. Shawn Andrews told children a story of ‘how the kookaburra found his laugh’ and also led a separate session with parents on Indigenous culture and history.

Sam Maddock, who heads the College’s Beacon Explorers program, said he was not aware of a similar outdoor education experience for pre-school aged children in Australia.

He said the camp – which he described as amazing – helped build resilience in young children by “normalising being away from home”.

“It also means the foundations are there next year for our Beacon Explorers program when children go into Prep,” he said.

Ms Reid said what struck her most about the whole experience was the way children responded to the ‘outdoor classroom’: “And the biggest complaint from parents was that the camp wasn’t long enough!”

One of Beaconhills College’s international students Rachel Chen has won a Latrobe University prize at the Japanese Language Speech Contest Victoria.

Rachel, whose first language is Mandarin, beat 20 other speakers from across Victoria with her three-minute speech in Japanese. She spoke about Japanese traditional food ‘Natto’ (fermented soy beans).

Proud teacher Junji Sakamoto said Rachel, who is Year 12, did an outstanding job to not only speak so well in a second language, but also in front of a large audience.

“Her speech had a sense of humour as well as showed her true interests in Japanese culture, which I feel attracted the judges’ attention,” Mr Sakamoto said. “Although Rachel has an enormous amount of her usual school work, she practised her speech many times.”

Rachel said while Chinese and Japanese languages were quite similar to an extent, they differed in their grammar patterns and pronunciations, which “caused her some difficulties”.

“As they especially are extremely similar in writing, I often get confused. Sometimes I will write Japanese in a Chinese essay by mistake!” she said.

Rachel delivers her speech in Japanese

It’s one of the most feared of all adult activities, but public speaking doesn’t phase Year 4 student Logan W one bit.

The Beaconhills Berwick Campus student was a gold medal winner in the recent House public speaking competition. His topic was My favourite sport.

Head of the Junior School, Cheryl Jones, said Logan was one of the students who reached a very high standard in a number of categories during his speech to families, teachers and other students.

Beaconhills students learn the valuable skill of public speaking from an early age. Gold medal winners from the House competition will present their two-minute speeches again in a special assembly after the Grand Final.

Logan W spoke well on his topic of sport

Is your password abc123 or qwerty? If so, you could risk being hacked in just milliseconds.

How to create secure passwords was just one of the interesting tips for Beaconhills College Middle School students currently taking part in Wellbeing Week (see more great tips below).

Guest presenter Dom Phelan from the Optus Digital Thumbprint program led one of the many interesting workshops students are enjoying this week.

The week also covers topics such as developing positive life habits and making good choices, personal health and puberty and a ‘Bully Zero’ presentation which looks at the cyber world and helps students protect themselves from online bullying. In one workshop students learn self-defence skills.

A Footy Colours Day on Friday 9 September raises money for research into Epidermolysis Bullosa – a rare skin disorder.

Dom Phelan’s key ‘digital insight’ tips:

• Always report when any of your social media accounts are hacked
• Remember all your information/posts becomes the property of the social media platform
• It can take up to two years to delete a Facebook account
• https://howsecureismypassword.net/ is safe way to test your password strength (tells you how it takes before someone can hack your password)
• Use a combination of uppercase, lowercase, symbols and numbers in passwords
• Never use your name or date of birth in your password
• Don’t keep passwords on the note section of your phone – this can be hacked
• Have at least three passwords – for social media, school and your bank account

Beaconhills College’s Head of Wellbeing Yvonne Ashmore said the school prioritises student wellbeing and aims to give students age-appropriate, expert information.

The sessions were rated and chosen by students from the previous year.

Workshop presenter Dom Phelan

Year 7s learned self-defence skills in a workshop

A huge new solar installation will make Beaconhills College one of the largest solar-powered schools in Australia.

The College is about to install a new 200kw solar system at its Berwick Campus, to add to its existing 100kw system. Another 100kw installation is also operating at the Pakenham Campus.

The new Berwick installation will lead to a 40 per cent reduction in the overall electricity purchased for the campus from the grid.

The move is just one of a raft of environmental initiatives set out in the College’s new ‘Green report’. The report charts the achievements under the school’s innovative Environmental and Sustainability plan, aimed at lightening its environmental footprint.

Encouraging students to be responsible stewards of the environment is also one of the school’s key ‘Learning That Matters’ philosophies.

Business Manager David Young said that for students to embrace the ‘green message’, it was important to lead by example.

He said the Beaconhills College goal was to be fully sustainable on its own energy within 10 years.

“We have introduced many strategies to help reduce our impact on the environment,” Mr Young said. “The results have been significant, particularly given the growth of our school, but of course there is always more we can do.”

One of the learning benefits of the solar installations is a web-based reporting system which allows students in class to track the energy levels produced by the sun.

The College has three worm forms which consume about 290kg of organic waste each week, along with a three-bin recycling system throughout the school. There are 46 water tanks which have helped cut mains water use from 45 litres per person, per day, to 11 litres per person in 2012. The target for next year is just seven litres,

Six vegetable gardens across both campuses, as well as two indigenous food gardens, supply produce for menus in Food Technology classes while the compost goes back to the worm farms. Little Beacons Learning Centre uses the fresh, organic produce for its pre-school menus while the ‘paddock to plate’ philosophy also helps teach children about healthy food and sustainability.

Mr Young said Beaconhills would continue to keep working hard to educate students and staff about sustainability.

“We will also keep consulting with experts on ways to further improve, ensuring we tap in to recent research and find the industry best practice,” he said.